1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an intermetallic-compound coated stainless steel, which can be used for parts requiring excellent rigidity, toughness, wear resistance and corrosion resistance, for example, structural parts such as gears and bearings, and cutting tools such as hair clippers and blades for electric shavers, and a method of producing the same.
2. Disclosure of the Prior Art
In the past, carbon tool steels, high carbon stainless steels, or precipitation-hardening stainless steels have been used to structural parts such as gears and bearings, and cutting tools such as hair clippers and blades for electric shavers. Although these materials are excellent in toughness, the wear resistance is not enough. To improve the wear resistance, conventional ceramics can be used. However, they have not been practical yet in applications requiring complex configuration or sharp edge because of poor toughness and workability of the ceramics. On the other hand, a surface modification of the foregoing steels can be performed by coating a hard material having excellent corrosion resistance such as alumina by means of physical vapor deposition (PVD) method or chemical vapor deposition (CVD). In this case, since a thickness of the coated hard material is very thin, for example, 0.1 .mu.m, sufficient wear resistance has not been obtained yet. In addition, there is a problem that the adhesion between the coated hard material and the steels is not enough.